Background: The incidence of thyroid cancer has increased exponentially in recent decades. At the same time, there is a growing concern surrounding the overdiagnosis of indolent thyroid cancer, leading to invasive and potentially unnecessary interventions that can significantly impact young patients' lives. Yet, the experiences of survivors of thyroid cancer have been largely understudied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Our previous work synthesized published studies on well-being interventions during COVID-19. As we move into a post-COVID-19 pandemic period there is a need to comprehensively review published strategies, approaches, and interventions to improve child and youth well-being beyond deleterious impacts experienced during COVID-19.
Methods: Seven databases were searched from inception to January 2023.
Adolescents and young adults (AYAs; 15-39 years) diagnosed with cancer have unique medical and psychosocial needs. These needs could be better addressed through research that is focused on the topics that matter most to them. However, there is currently no patient-oriented research agenda for AYA cancer in Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdolescents and young adults (AYAs; 15-39 years) diagnosed with cancer face disparities in outcomes and survival. Patient advocacy organizations can play a pivotal role in advancing outcomes for underserved health conditions, such as AYA cancer. In 2018 a group of AYA patient advocates founded AYA Canada (later renamed to "AYA Can-Canadian Cancer Advocacy"), a peer-led national organization aimed at improving the experiences and outcomes of Canadian AYAs affected by cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic pain, defined as persistent or recurring pain or pain lasting longer than 3 months, is a common childhood problem. The objective of this study was to conduct an updated systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of chronic pain (ie, overall, headache, abdominal pain, back pain, musculoskeletal pain, multisite/general pain, and other) in children and adolescents. EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were searched for publications between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2023.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFQuantitative sensory testing (QST) refers to a group of noninvasive psychophysical tests that examine responses to a range of calibrated mechanical and thermal stimuli. Quantitative sensory testing has been used extensively in adult pain research and has more recently been applied to pediatric pain research. The aims of this scoping review were to map the current state of the field, to identify gaps in the literature, and to inform directions for future research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Everyday pains are experienced frequently by young children. Parent responses shape how young children learn about and experience pain. However, research on everyday pains in toddlers and preschoolers is scarce, and no self-report measures of parent responses to their child's pain exist for this age group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs; ages 15-29 years) diagnosed with cancer are increasingly recognized as an oncology population with distinct psychosocial needs. However, few specialized psychosocial interventions for AYAs currently exist. This study reports on the development of a novel group-based psychotherapy intervention to address the psychosocial needs of AYAs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Bodily threat monitoring is a core clinical feature of Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) and is targeted in psycho-oncology treatments, yet no comprehensive self-report measure exists. The aim of this study was the theory-informed development and initial validation of the Bodily Threat Monitoring Scale (BTMS).
Methods: Adult survivors of breast and gynaecological cancers (Study 1: N = 306, age = 37-81 years) and childhood cancer survivors (Study 2: N = 126, age = 10-25 years) completed the BTMS, designed to assess how individuals monitor for and interpret uncertain symptoms as indicating that something is wrong with their body.
Introduction: On 11 March 2020, WHO declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) disease a global pandemic. Governments globally implemented physical distancing measures and closure of public institutions that resulted in varying implications to youth mental well-being (eg, social isolation, reduced extracurricular activities). These impacts may have detrimental short-term and long-term effects on youth mental well-being; care for youth with mental health disorders was already overstretched, underfunded and fragmented before the pandemic and youth are not often considered in mental health initiatives.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted the mental health of children, youth, and their families which must be addressed and prevented in future public health crises. Our objective was to measure how self-reported mental health symptoms of children/youth and their parents evolved during COVID-19 and to identify associated factors for children/youth and their parents including sources accessed for information on mental health. We conducted a nationally representative, multi-informant cross-sectional survey administered online to collect data from April to May 2022 across 10 Canadian provinces among dyads of children (11-14 years) or youth (15-18 years) and a parent (> 18 years).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The COVID-19 pandemic is an example of a global infectious disease outbreak that poses a threat to the well-being of children and youth (e.g., physical infection, psychological impacts).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Patient engagement (PE) in research refers to partnering with people with lived experience (e.g., patients, caregivers, family) as collaborators in the research process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Children and youth are often more vulnerable than adults to emotional impacts of trauma. Wide-ranging negative effects (eg, social isolation, lack of physical activity) of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and youth are well established. This scoping review will identify, describe and categorise strategies taken to mitigate potentially deleterious impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, youth and their families.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Theoretical models suggest that anxiety, pain intensity, and pain catastrophizing are implicated in a cycle that leads to heightened fear of cancer recurrence (FCR). However, these relationships have not been empirically examined. The objective of this study was to examine the relationships between anxiety symptoms, pain intensity, pain catastrophizing, and FCR in childhood cancer survivors and their parents and to examine whether pain catastrophizing predicts increased FCR beyond anxiety symptoms and pain intensity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Scan-related anxiety ("scanxiety") refers to the fear, stress, and anxiety in anticipation of tests and scans in follow-up cancer care. This study assessed the feasibility of Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) for real-world, real-time capture of scanxiety using patients' personal smartphone.
Methods: Adolescent and Young Adult survivors of childhood cancer were prompted to complete EMA surveys on a smartphone app three times per day for 11 days (33 surveys total) around their routine surveillance scans.
Objective: Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is a common and distressing psychosocial concern for adult cancer survivors. Data on this construct in child survivors is limited and there are no validated measures for this population. This study aimed to adapt the Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory-Short Form (FCRI-SF) for survivors of childhood cancer aged 8-18 years (Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory-Child version [FCRI-C]) and their parents (Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory-Parent version [FCRI-P]) to self-report on their own FCR and to examine the initial psychometric properties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancer and its treatment can have lasting consequences on somatosensation, including pain, which is often underrecognized and undertreated. Research characterizing the impact of cancer on pain and sensory processing in survivors of childhood cancer is scarce. This study aimed to quantify generalized differences in pain and sensory processing in survivors of childhood cancer compared with reference data using a standardized thermal and mechanical quantitative sensory testing (QST) protocol.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to examine the impact of end-of-life (EoL) circumstances on grief and internalizing symptoms among bereaved siblings. Bereaved families (N = 88) were recruited from three sites 3-12 months (M = 11.57, SD = 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArthritis Care Res (Hoboken)
November 2022
Objective: Children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) are faced with a complex medical journey requiring consistent adherence to treatments to achieve disease management. Parents are intimately involved in JIA treatments; however, little is known about their experiences in this role. This is relevant as many treatments necessitate procedural pain (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNew parents experience significant disruption to their sexual relationships such as lower desire and sexual frequency relative to prepregnancy. Little is known about the sexual distress new parents feel related to these changes, how sexual distress evolves over time, or how coping with stress relates to this distress. New parent couples who engage in more adaptive, joint coping with mutual stressors-common dyadic coping (CDC)-may be better able to manage distress related to their sexuality and thus, experience less sexual distress at 3-months postpartum and experience more marked improvement over time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Vaccination is a common painful procedure for children. Parents' concern regarding vaccination pain is a significant driver of vaccine hesitancy. Despite the wealth of evidence-based practices available for managing vaccination pain, parents lack knowledge of, and access to, these strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPatient Educ Couns
October 2021
Objective: This study aimed to examine barriers and facilitators to the dissemination of efficacious self-directed digital health tools for adults affected by cancer, and quantify funding used to develop and evaluate these digital health tools.
Methods: We conducted: (1) a systematic literature review to identify efficacious self-directed digital health tools for adults affected by cancer, published between 2009 and 2019 and (2) an author survey to identify barriers and facilitators to dissemination of those tools, grant funding and the user centredness of their design (UCD) process.
Results: Of 1314 screened articles, 29 articles describing 26 tools met the inclusion criteria.